’East meets West’ in cancer fight

Combining traditional forms of Chinese and Western medicine could offer new hope for developing new treatments for liver, lung, colorectal cancers and osteosarcoma of the bones. Experts from the University's School of Medicine have joined forces with Peking University in China to test the health benefits of a traditional Chinese medicine. The team also set-out to examine how by combining it with more traditional methods like Chemotherapy could improve patient outcomes and potentially lead to the development of new cancer treatments and therapies. "Traditional Chinese medicine where compounds are extracted from natural products or herbs has been practised for centuries in China, Korea, Japan and other countries in Asia," according to Professor Wen Jiang, School of Medicine, who is the director of the Cardiff University-Peking University Joint Cancer Institute at Cardiff and led the research as part of a collaboration between Cardiff University and Peking University. "Although a few successes, most of the traditional remedies are short of scientific explanation which has inevitably led to scepticism - especially amongst traditionalists in the West. "As a result, we set out to test the success of a Chinese medicine and then consider how combining it alongside traditional methods like Chemotherapy could result in positive outcome for patients," he adds. Yangzheng Xiaoji is a traditional Chinese formula consisting of 14 herbs.